Jessica's Big Day

I’m still not quite sure what to make of it all.

I was told to be in Llapallapani, the Uru village on Lake Poopo, at 7am so I could go through a class for godparents. The priest, and class instructor, would be coming from Challapata to perform the mass baptism of some 40 Urus.

But of course he wasn’t there, and they hadn’t even come close to starting when I showed up at almost 8am, after picking up baby Jessica’s baptism dress at 6am from the seamstress two towns away.

So when the class hadn’t begun, I headed to baby Jessica’s house where bloody sheep lungs were hanging from the clothesline – a morning salute to the day’s special events. To the right of his lungs, the sheep’s head and skin sprawled on the dirt floor.
I found baby Jessica leaning against the stump used for scrubbing clothes clean, with a bucket of bright red blood to her side. I wanted to pick her up or at least move the bucket, but I resisted the cultural impulse. Roma – baby Jessica’s father – was very dirty and very busy chopping apart the sheep’s skinned carcass. Alicia – baby Jessica’s 18 year old mother – was slapping mud onto the seams of the adobe firewood oven I had seen Roma construct just the day before. They paid me little mind, as there was much to do, much of which would be in my honor for accepting the responsibility of being Jessica’s godmother and namesake. I wanted to make myself useful, but honestly I wasn’t about to touch any part of the sacrificed sheep, so instead I snapped a few photos and mostly just stood around with my mouth open until it was time to bathe and dress my goddaughter.


Around 10:30 the priest and his crew showed up to begin the godparents’ class. But the thing is, I’m not Catholic. But the other thing is, neither are the Urus…well not really. But in Bolivia, the Catholic Church’s baptismal certificates are legal documents, which can serve as personal identification, which can then serve to receive state benefits such as social security. And most Urus, with their on average 5th grade education, either never had or have lost their personal identification documents. I’m assuming the priest got all this. I mean its not everyday a little Uru village asks a priest to come baptize some 40 people – ages 0-65. But even if he did understand what was really going on, there were rituals to be followed, sacraments to be observed. And though I know many of the Urus flat out lied when asked if they had been baptized before, (many have been, but have lost their certificates), they too seemed to take somewhat seriously the traditions. How strange to observe a practice for a motive completely apart from it’s intention, but to do so faithfully.

As I learned how to cross myself properly in my class (its left to right, right to left is a sign of the anti-Christ), I wavered between a soaring hope for a people who somehow serve a faceless God with the bizarre mix of cultural and catholic tools they’ve been given in life, and the verge of tears as the priest periodically called upon church authority instead of God’s love and shot out what felt like rays of intense power that did anything but empower those in the room.

Afterwards I paid my five bucks for baby Jessica’s paperwork and provided a bent Texas driver’s license to verify my own identity for her certificate.

Henry Ford would have been impressed with the mass baptismal ceremony, as it was a regular assembly line of holy water. First everyone was crossed, then everyone was wetted, then everyone was anointed.

The priest suggested now that so many people were baptized he would like to come out once a month to give mass. I give it two months, if ever. Like I said, they’re not really Catholic, and besides that I’ve began documenting the Urus history of failed development projects which range from green houses to evangelicals – somehow they never last long.

After his speech about commitment, we all sang and then went to eat the slaughtered sheep.

But I did something awful. I lied. It’s just some days I’m more adventurous than others, and some days I know I wont be able to handle it. So I said I was a vegetarian. Its awful because first of all the sheep was probably very expensive for Alicia and Roma’s budget and secondly because I know they got up at 3am that day to begin the skinning and cooking process. Its just the day was so intense and stretching for me, that I wasn’t sure I could add the sheep on top of it.

But what I wasn’t lying about was when I said I knew that someday baby Jessica would show up at my doorstep in the US and I would say to her, “Girl, I knew you before you even had a name…come on in.”